Who else misses early screenshots?

[Hobie-wan]

Remember when the screenshots on the boxes themselves were photos of a TV?

[Yancakes]

I remember Doc Zombie from GamePro talking about doing a walkthrough for Super Mario land for the GameBoy. Because they didn't have screencap technology for the GB at the time, his maps were drawn by hand, pixel for pixel, and it made for some fantastic maps.

[Jontendo]

Remember when the screenshots on the boxes themselves were photos of a TV?

I was just thinking the same. I've got quite a few Turbografx boxes with the distinctive curvy edges of a CRT.

Actually, I've seen a few later prints of boxes where they switched the screens over to higher quality caps. There is a kind of charm to the older ones, but some were pretty rough on the eyes.

[Weekend_Warrior]

Something I really miss from old game magazines (and I guess the industry in general)... was the 3-5 page previews for upcoming games when they would feature screenshots from all the different versions; like the Genesis, SNES, Game Gear and/or Game Boy. Games like Mortal Kombat, NBA Jam, and Aladdin were featured like that and I always found it fun to compare the screenshots and note each system's strengths and weaknesses. And of course, back in the days of the Genesis vs SNES rivalry it was also very fascinating to see dev's try to push each system to the max as a means to outdo each other - to see who would have the best/coolest port.

I think the days of the Saturn and PS1 were the last true days of that sort of competitive spirit among programmers who develop and outsource video games for multi-platform release.

Nowadays, it seems everybody just wants the PS3 and 360 versions to be as close as possible. And that's really boring. Sure, sometimes it can still be kinda fun to compare the Wii version to its bigger, stronger brother on the PS3/360. But let's not kid ourselves, even if the Wii version looks decent enough in a screenshot by comparison, it simply cannot compete with the visuals on-screen and in motion with the same game running in full 720p on a high-def console and tv. So to compare the two (or three) seems rather silly.

[Curlypaul]

I remember a mag running a Sonic 2 walkthru like that, they had mapped out every level with screenshots and pasted them altogether. That really must have took some effort!

How do mags get screens for handhelds lately? There are no 3DS emulators yet, so are they stuck with the screens that get sent to them by the publisher, who creates them using the SDK?

[noiseredux]

I remember Doc Zombie from GamePro talking about doing a walkthrough for Super Mario land for the GameBoy. Because they didn't have screencap technology for the GB at the time, his maps were drawn by hand, pixel for pixel, and it made for some fantastic maps.

YES! Exactly! That kind of stuff was awesome.

[Zing]

How do mags get screens for handhelds lately? There are no 3DS emulators yet, so are they stuck with the screens that get sent to them by the publisher, who creates them using the SDK?

The publishers probably send a whole "review kit" that contains all the art, screenshots, videos, and "recommended text" needed.